


Too Young To Die

by BrochaninWords



Category: Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Abrupt Ending, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-26 01:54:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15653364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrochaninWords/pseuds/BrochaninWords
Summary: A young 41st clone tries to take his own life after his first battle. Barriss saves him.





	Too Young To Die

Here he was. Unsure of surety, and certain of uncertainty. He didn’t have a name, because he wasn’t a name, he was… wasn’t sure what he was, actually. He was breathing and thinking and feeling, but it all seemed a little drowned out. Underwater. Everything was so beautiful, but he could never reach any of it; he was separate.  
Thick. Drawn. Stretched. Slow. That was life, and his place in it, never quite understanding what the rules of the game were, or how everyone else seemed to understand them so simply. Like they were straight forward. Well… they really weren’t.  
Rain was wet.  
Snow was cold.  
The desert was hot.  
But after the surface-level, everything became so much more complicated. It was only wet if you could feel it, to you it was, at least. It was only cold if you were alive. It was only hot if you were a species not made for the temperature. For some, two-hundred degrees was chilly, and for others, it was deadly. Where was the line between reality and opinion? Truth and lies? Understanding and confusion? It didn’t seem like there was a line anymore, because it seemed like it was all clumped together into one massive ball that no one could untangle.  
He teetered, not especially intent on staying upright, but not entirely interested in falling over, either. A slight wind would be enough to blow him over the edge, he thought. He was a leaf. Unsteady, blown about by the whims of the universe and gravity and *laws*, nothing according to his own wants, desires, or efforts. Not quite real, but too organic to ignore the fact that he had a responsibility to act like he was a part of the galaxy, too.  
There was a deep knowledge in his gut that told him he was here for a reason, and he either needed to get it over with, or get over himself. He didn’t know that he had planned to do this. It was just that… he had ended up there, standing on the roof, his booted feet toeing the edge, just an inch from returning his borrowed atoms to the current planet.  
CT-2457 wobbled dangerously, but his heart didn’t miss a beat, nor did anything spike in his mind other than longing and exhaustion.  
Rain was wet on his green-and-white armor.  
He liked the way it looked, rolling down the metal surface. He was protected inside, safe from nature, safe from the laws of the universe that he had no control over, and this little bit of control offered to him now seemed like a slap in the face. He had seen what had happened to Yuril, and to Bac, and all the others. He had seen how little their armor had done to protect them.  
Pulling his helmet off, he felt the immediate downpour of water against his face. Maybe it could wash away the blood that he couldn’t, and if it failed, too, then the duracrete below would.  
“Trooper.”  
The voice made his insides curdle, which made the ground look even more enticing. She would think he was defective—she would turn him in—send him back to Kamino—where he would die, a death that he had no control over… It was enough to make his chest tighten beneath his breastplate, and if the wetness rolling down his cheeks was salty, no one had to know.  
“What’s your name, trooper?”  
He didn’t have a name. He was just an item in the universe. Used and bendable, easily snuffed out by the cruel cold between the stars. Hesitant, he looked over his shoulder, an action that made him wobble forward, the sturdiness under his feet nearly disappearing. He met the blue eyes of his commander. “Leaf.” Leaf, blown around in the wind.  
“Leaf, come down from there at once.” Her wispy, even voice held a tone of command beneath it. He didn’t move. Barriss, in a slow movement, started to move her hands up, her black sleeves drawing back on her wrists. “I will not ask again.”  
His feet threw him over the edge without the consent of his conscious mind. He met air—peace, fear, don’t-want-to-die-I-like-the-rain-I-can’t-live-it-hurts—  
And then he was floating. Actually floating, levitating up and over the roof from which he had just thrown himself over. Barriss’ hands were outstretched, her expression a grim twisting of an effortful show.  
He was set, carefully, with a small drop, on the roof.  
No. No, no no, he had been so close, he couldn’t live, he couldn’t face it he couldn’t do it…  
Rocking forward with a gut-wrenched moan, he dropped his head against his messily folded arms, and sobbed. A hand found his cheek, and the touch, along with the physical comfort it brought—he didn’t want to feel comfort, he wanted to feel dead—made his chest tear open.  
“Quiet—you’re far too young to die.”  
Far too young. Yes, nine years was very young, he thought, bitterly, too young to see your best friends blown up and far too young to be volunteered into a war he wanted nothing to do with. Choking, he tasted the salty, warm tears, mingling with the tasteless rain, and tried to block out the little voice that was telling him that meant he was real, and he was alive, and maybe, even, *maybe* he was supposed to be alive.  
A warmth spread through his body, and it felt real. Whole. He felt filled by it, consumed, and he knew it was from Commander Offee—he knew it was the Force.  
“The Force is for everyone. Not just Jedi, Private. For all life.”  
He gasped and raised his head, trembling, his own hand desperate to hold hers where it was pressed against his cheek. Her fingers were thin and delicate, but he knew they were anything but, he had seen her wield a lightsaber, and he had seen her take life with them. It didn’t seem fair that something soft should be forged into iron. Nothing seemed fair.  
Unmoved, she met his gaze, her diamond tattoos mere shadows under her eyes. “Remember, this is inside of you, even when you cannot feel it. The Force has sewn you together—do not break yourself apart.”  
Leaf dipped his head back down, his body shaking from crying that he couldn’t control. He felt her bring him closer, felt his head pressing into her stomach.  
They stayed this way well into the night, and far past when the rain halted.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
